Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category

How Do You Explain Twitter?

Monday, June 16th, 2008

I’m connected to a lot of tech-savvy folks (tweeple) via Twitter, but I work and hang out with a lot of not-so-tech-savvy folks (people) in real life. Once in a while the twain will meet, but not often.

My friends who are somewhere in the middle have Twitter accounts, but don’t use them like I do. (I.e., they don’t tweet via sms, or use it to ask questions of the cloud, etc.) They snicker when they see me tweet in public, but at home and work, they’re checking in regularly. I’m don’t want to discuss these Twitter-closet folks.

The people I want to discuss are those who don’t understand it at all. When I try to explain it to my co-workers, I’m a little timid. Most of the time, I don’t even bother even though I’ve found it very valuable for keeping my finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the Twin Cities. I try to explain how I’ve made friends IRL through Twitter, etc., but their eyes glaze over and I give up.

How do you explain Twitter (and services like it) to those who are unfamiliar or resistant to it?

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MinneWebCon 2008

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

I spent a great day at MinneWebCon yesterday talking with and meeting other folks in the industry at The Big U where I work and elsewhere.

It was really a good event for those of us in Minneapolis who are interested in current and emerging web technology. The interesting this to me is how much Twitter added to the experience for those of us participating.

If you weren’t monitoring things on Twitter, you really missed out on an ongoing conversation. The most obvious observation is that there was a general air of excitement about the event and a lot of people were merely expressing that sentiment in real time. That had one benefit: I was able to get a sense of what was happening in sessions that I was not attending. At least once it influenced my decision to bail out of one session in favor of another.

The second, perhaps more valuable thing about Twitter at the event was a stream of continuous feedback. We were not 30 seconds into the conference before someone was commenting on the @klayon’s introduction. Tracking “#minnewebcon” from my cell phone was like having an ear to the wall. The best part about that? The organizers of the event responded directly to me about a couple of comments I made. They were paying attention and that’s important.

There will be more formal methods for providing feedback in the next few days, but if you want to troubleshoot the problems in real-time and address them, Twitter is your friend.

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Posted in MinneWebCon, Mobile Technology, New Media, Social Media, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Comcast using Twitter to Respond to Consumer Complaints

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

I don’t think it’s any secret that Comcast has an image problem. I have to give them some credit for trolling Twitter (or more likely going a Tweetscan), and responding directly to consumer complaints with e-mails and phone calls from the executive’s offices.

Do you see the value now?

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Posted in Comcast, New Media, Social Media, Twitter, posterous | No Comments »

Will Twitter Get Benched?

Friday, April 4th, 2008

The Industry Standard put Twitter on it’s “predicted to fail” list.

Failings: There’s no compelling reason for most people to use it, and many existing services — ranging from AIM to FriendFeed to social networks — have overlapping functionality. And how is it supposed to make money?

That’s the $10,000 question isn’t it? (Pun intended.) Where’s the money in it?

When I was a senior in high school (in 1988), a teacher once told me that in the near future information would be the key factor in success and power. It sounded good, but I didn’t quite get what he was talking about at the time. Now look at us. Google is the case and point for what he was talking about.

The information contained in Twitter is not as voluminous as what Google has to offer, but it’s immediate. I know within seconds if someone is tweeting about something I’m tracking on Twitter. Seconds. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out a potential use for that information. And the last I checked, Twitter was still the most popular of the micromedia sites out there. I think it could go somewhere. You?

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Posted in New Media, Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »